Mathletics, Knowledgenet and other stuff.

Mathletics and Knowledgenet

I'll send around your teacher logins for mathletics this week. When you log in you'll be able to print out your maths class logins and passwords in case you want to get into it before the end of the term.

I'll go over the basics of teacher admin on teacher only day anyway. There is a login link on the Wellesley Maths page.

Knowledgenet is our new Learning Management system and Intranet. I've started populating this with our intranet stuff, and there will be usernames and passwords for this as well (but only for accessing certain parts of it. More on teacher only day!

And remember the blog competition. I've organised a judge to check them out next week, so make sure you blog is up to date before then.

Smartboards

Wordle

Have a play with Wordle – a tool which lets you create word clouds with examples of text. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.

For example, the cloud below is constructed from the Wellesley Philosophy as it appears on the school web site.

Which words are given prominence? What does it tell you?

How could you use this on the Smartboard?

Smartboard cartoons - Welcome to Hunkin's Experiments. Cool cartoons that will have you experimenting with food, light, sound, clothes, and a whole lot more!! Hundreds of cartoon experiments from cartoonist, broadcaster and engineer Tim Hunkin.

http://www.hunkinsexperiments.com/

ICT Sessions at Wellesley

These are some images relating to work done by your boys in ICT. First some edited digital photos using online editing web site Fotoflexer:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27595273@N05/sets/72157605585388227/

And some 2d images of 3d designed vehicles in Google Sketchup.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27595273@N05/sets/72157605578770018/

Young Minds, Fast Times: The Twenty-First-Century Digital Learner

How tech-obsessed iKids would improve our schools. Marc Prensky

http://www.edutopia.org/ikid-digital-learner-technology-2008

An interesting article. What do you think:

Turn teen texting toward better writing

Teachers who co-opt Web tools for class have the best of both worlds.

"Our student bloggers and digital writers of all backgrounds are part of a journaling culture which America has not seen since the great age of diarists during the Transcendental movement, when Thoreau and Emerson recorded their daily lives for eventual public consumption."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0513/p09s02-coop.html?page=1